


Running Empty on Hope

by Tasyfa



Series: I Ain't Drunk, I'm Amazed [6]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, M/M, do not copy to other sites, guerinweek19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 00:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20733557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasyfa/pseuds/Tasyfa
Summary: August 2008. This wasn’t the decision Michael had expected Alex to make. (Takes place after the events ofMoonlight Sonata.)





	Running Empty on Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Day 6: September 22, 2019  
Fic prompt: Pre-canon and/or “the lost decade”  
Edit/art/video prompt: Cowboys Don’t Cry  
Song prompt: “Cover Me Up” Zak Brown Band  
Visual Prompt: [teary-eyed teenage Michael watching Rosa's car burn]
> 
> [[[lyrics: But I made it through / ‘Cause somebody knew / I was meant for someone]]]
> 
> Not so much with the afterglow, I’m afraid! But we knew roughly how that summer ended...  
~ Tas

* * * * *

“Something wrong with your fries, Michael? You look kinda green.”

Isobel’s question was so much background noise as Michael strained to hear more of the conversation at the far end of the counter in the Crashdown Café.

“First my Liz, now Alex… You must keep coming around, Maria, even if it’s just to humour an old man.”

“I will, Mr. Ortecho, I promise. Right now I’m gonna take Alex his last Crashdown meal before he goes off to boot camp tomorrow, or whatever they call it.”

He watched the older man hug his daughters’ friend then Maria skipped off with a drinks tray and a large takeout bag in hand.

“Michael,” Isobel’s voice was low, urgent; it caught his attention this time. “Did you know he was leaving?” When he shook his head, she sighed. “You need to go talk to him then. At least, I don’t know, get an address for letters or something.”

“Yeah,” he whispered. Alex was leaving. Alex was _leaving_, and he hadn’t even tried to tell Michael goodbye.

“Would you go already? You don’t know how long he’ll be at the Pony and I’m not exactly welcome in there.” When Michael focused his eyes on her, Isobel gave him a gentle smile. “I’ll call Max to pick me up, tell him you forgot you had a date or something. _Go_.”

It didn’t take him long to find the tiny USB stick; one advantage of living out of his truck was that he knew exactly where everything was. Not like there was enough space to really lose stuff. Michael slipped it in his pocket and drove to the Wild Pony.

His eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and his ears to the raucous din of the bar in no time, and Michael zeroed in on Alex and the DeLuca women at one end of the main bar, like a weird mirror image of Maria in the Crashdown just now, except with added Alex.

Who seemed to have a sixth sense for Michael, because his head turned and their eyes met.

No liner. No nose ring. No spikiness to his hair, simply brushed into some semblance of order and left alone. No black, either; blue jeans and a dark red T-shirt. Michael watched as he excused himself and noticed that neither woman watched him go, instead chatting to each other and eating.

“Hi.”

“Hi?” Michael repeated in disbelief. “That’s it? Hi?”

Alex glanced around them and nodded at the doorway. “Let’s talk somewhere more private.”

Michael allowed himself to be led out of the bar and around the back of the building, to a sheltered spot beside a dumpster. A touch of hysteria accompanied the thought that it was the perfect fucking location.

What he said aloud was, “Okay, talk,” deliberately invoking that day at the UFO Emporium. Hoping Alex would remember how it felt waiting to get kicked in the teeth, and, if Michael were being honest, hoping for a similar lack of anybody kicking anything.

There was no indication in Alex’s expression that he recognised the phrase, and no quarter was given when he spoke. “I enlisted. I leave tomorrow.”

“Right,” Michael nodded, briefly numb with shock at the easy confirmation. Then the fury rose. “Were you even going to fucking tell me?”

“We’ve been over this, Guerin,” his answering sigh bled frustration. “I told you I was going to do it. Not my fault you didn’t fucking believe me.”

“Yeah, because one minute you said it was the only way, and the next you said you’d rather die. Excuse me for not taking that to be your actual list of options.”

“Well maybe you should have,” Alex hissed, and then his eyes closed and he slumped, his shoulders curling forward. Michael couldn’t help but want to hold him more than he wanted to keep yelling at him. He watched Alex give a tiny headshake, tongue sweeping over his bottom lip in a move that usually made Michael’s body throb with want but it felt different tonight. Defeat, not desire. “Those weren’t the only options, no. But I did weigh the ones available, and this came out on top.”

“Following your batshit family into war?”

His eyes snapped open, no small amount of emotion burning hot in their depths. “Following a path that might let me have a future, Guerin. That will get me out of this stupid town and into a college education. Not all of us had the grades to get a full ride, you know.”

It was a truer arrow than Alex knew; Michael had refused his scholarship to UNM. He’d tried to defer it for one year, something a lot of colleges let their students do, but the conditions of his particular scholarship didn’t allow for that, and he couldn’t leave Isobel, not now, not when Rosa’s death was still fresh and they had no idea if Isobel would relapse.

No, Michael wouldn’t be attending college after all. And Alex would be attending it in uniform.

He made a small, lost noise. “That’s why you started avoiding me again.” Couldn’t talk him out of it if he couldn’t talk to him at all. Couldn’t use his body to persuade Alex there had to be another way.

Couldn’t even do that now, not with the way Alex kept shifting his weight and looking over his shoulder like he expected someone to come throw slurs or worse at them just for standing in the fucking parking lot, talking.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he confessed, “and I needed - I needed to be able to make the decision with a clear head, or as clear as I could get it. And I’m so not clear around you, Guerin, I’m up to my eyeballs in fog and smoke and I don’t fucking know which way is up, okay? So this is just, it’s for the best. For everyone.”

“No.” It was all Michael could manage at first, then his voice gained strength. “No, Alex, it’s not okay. But it’s also not something either of us can do anything about. Even if you did want to back out, you can’t.” He’d done his homework. Unless Alex was deemed physically unfit or otherwise failed basic training - not fucking likely - he was stuck at this point. He’d already signed his life away.

“Guerin ---”

“Here,” Michael cut him off, digging into his pocket. He held out the USB stick and Alex took it, giving him a quizzical look. Michael shrugged. “Something to remember me by.”

Both eyebrows went up. “Something digital?”

He smirked. “Audio only, and no names, don’t worry. But maybe keep it to yourself in the land of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

“Guerin, you… Seriously?” Like Alex wasn’t sure if he believed it. Or maybe just didn’t want it, even if he’d said so that one time. Michael was already regretting giving him the recording but he couldn’t back down now.

“Enjoy, in private. See you around.” He adjusted the brand new black cowboy hat, a gift to celebrate his aging out of the system, and pushed off the building wall, sauntering away towards his truck. 

He didn’t look back.

[Et fini]

**Author's Note:**

> You may have noticed this is also attributed to a second series (following Moonlight Sonata). That second / different series is: Pre-Glow Verse. It will be for stories that take place in the same universe as my upcoming post-S01 fic, Headlight Morning Glow (HMGlow). The Pre-Glow Verse stories will function as backstory for HMGlow. (Hence the really imaginative name!) I’ll begin posting that end of this month.  
~ Tas


End file.
